A Response to “Philosophies of Cyber and

Real Selves”Rob Hasker

A historical view The internet as the domain of geeks:

A historical view The internet as the domain of geeks:

August 1991

August 1991

Communication via the internet

A small world:

Are these the virtual communities we hoped for?

facebookMarturano & Bellucci, A Debordian Analysis of Facebook, at CEPE 2009:

"Facebook and similar are rather new disguised forms of advanced capitalism that is trying to colonize the Internet by reducing the networking model to a more controllable (for old advanced capitalism) broadcasting model."

Failing the promise Wikipedia: democratic, but not

individual Another block: lack of privacy

• How much information are we giving away?• Search engine: daily activities, business

pursuits, personal thoughts[B. Gerber, SIGCAS, Dec. 2010]

• What if combined with email, calendar? Can we control our persona on the

internet?

Web Science

How to model the network?• Web graph

Connections, not content• Artificial languages + protocols

Does not explain popularity How stable is the network?

• Loose collection of standards• Key development tool: testing• Are services provided fairly?

J. Hendler et al., CACM, July 2008

Web Science What is an effective model for privacy?

• Current view: friends around the table Can’t ensure such things as “my employer will

never see this picture”• How to develop a better model?

Suggestion: need multiple, interconnected social network providers

Each would capture a different social process Need technologies allowing user communities to

construct, share, and adapt social machines

Summary What do we need to realize a “virtual

self”?• Free, open, reliable communication• Control on how that information is

distributed Web science

• attempting to remove barriers at the technical level

Open question: what are the other barriers?